Lansdale council receives committee assignments, could combine Public Works and Electric

New Lansdale Borough Council member Liz Troy (R) with her friends is sworn in by Judge Richard Haaz (center) during a council meeting at the North Penn Educationalal Services Center on Monday January 6,2014. Photo by Mark C Psoras/The Reporter

LANSDALE — Now that three new council members have now taken seats on Lansdale’s Borough Council, changes could come soon to two of those council committees they’ll oversee.

On Monday night newly elected council members Leon Angelichio, Liz Troy and Tom Work were sworn in alongside re-elected incumbents Mary Fuller and Jason Van Dame. Once seated, they were given committee assignments by newly chosen council President Jack Hansen, who said he’d like to discuss consolidating the borough’s Public Works and Electric committees.

“We are going to keep them separate committees for now, until it comes up before council and we talk about if we want to combine them,” Hansen said.

Since all three report to Ziegler, Hansen said, why not bring Electric into the Public Works meeting and free up staff and council members for other meetings?

“Jake is the department head for both committees. Why should he have to sit through an Electric committee meeting, which normally doesn’t take a whole lot of time, and then come into a Public Works meeting?” Hansen said.

“You can do it all at once, it’s all going to fall under Public Works anyway, and we’ll be able to handle it that way. That’s just a suggestion I have,” he said.

That combined committee would be chaired by newly named council Vice President Steve Malagari, who headed Public Works for the past year, under the assignments given out by Hansen Monday night.

“The reason we stepped forward with this is because this is reorganization night, and we’re supposed to get everything done,” Hansen said.

He added that any council member was welcome to contact him to discuss any problems with the committee assignments, and said “my door is always open, my phone is always on.” Those assignments are as follows:

Administration and Finance - Angelichio, chairman, along with Denton Burnell and Hansen.

Public Works and Electric — Steve Malagari, Chair, with DiGregorio and Tom Work.

Parks and Recreation — Fuller, chair, along with Troy and Van Dame.

Public Safety — Troy, chair, with Work and Malagari.

Library — Fuller, chair, with DiGregorio and Malagari.

Economic Development — Malagari, chair, with Work and Fuller.

Appointments — Hansen, chair, with DiGregorio and Fuller.

Planning commission liaison — Malagari.

The borough’s Communication Commission and its members are established by votes of council instead of by its president, according to Burnell, and several forthcoming vacancies to that body will be discussed in future meetings.

No committee meetings will be held in January; borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Jan. 15 at the North Penn School District’s Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock Street. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.Lansdale.org or follow @LansdalePA on Twitter.